What SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Launch Means for Getting Humans to Mars
Posted on May 26, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 716 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket launched yesterday (Feb. 6) in its historic maiden flight from the same launchpad that brought the Apollo missions to the moon. Besides breaking records as the most powerful rocket and spitting out a "midnight cherry" Tesla Roadster for a long and possibly violent life in deep space, the launch is a key stepping-stone in the company's quest to bring colonists to Mars.
Though SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced yesterday that the rocket is no longer in the company's planning for use with crewed missions, the reusable Falcon Heavy may still bring cargo in regular trips to the Red Planet.
[Read More]Why bugs are not huge
Posted on May 26, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 399 words
| Fernande Dalal
Dragonflies with hawk-sized wing spans and millipedes longer than a human leg lived more than 250 million years ago. Scientists have long wondered why sci-fi bugs don't exist today. The reason has to do with a bottleneck that occurs in insects' air pipes as they become humongous, new research shows.
In the Paleozoic Era, insects were able to overcome the bottleneck due to a high-oxygen atmosphere. Unlike animals with backbones, like us, insects deliver oxygen to their tissues directly and bloodlessly through a network of dead-end tracheal tubes.
[Read More]'Resistant' Starches Heal the Colon, Prevent Cancer & Diabetes
Posted on May 25, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 700 words
| Patria Henriques
The Borg had it wrong. Resistance is not futile. In fact, it can stave off colon cancer and ease inflammatory bowel disease and other digestion problems.
The resistance, in this case, comes in the form of so-called resistant starches, certain kinds of carbohydrates that resist digestion in the small intestine and enter into the large intestine, or colon, mostly in the same form they entered your mouth.
These starches — found in seed hulls, parts of corn and beans, and in room-temperature rice and pasta — can ferment in the colon to promote the growth of "
[Read More]'Upside-Down Rivers' of Warm Water Are Carving Antarctica to Pieces
Posted on May 25, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 739 words
| Patria Henriques
Earth's frozen places are losing ground fast. In Antarctica, melted ice spills into the ocean at rate of about 155 billion tons (140 billion metric tons) per year — an amount so confoundingly huge that it's easier just to call it "chilling" and "unprecedented," as a recent U.N. report did. Those numbers will only increase as humans continue polluting the air with record amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
On the frontlines of this warm-weather siege are the world's ice shelves.
[Read More]2012 Hurricane Forecast Update: More Storms Expected
Posted on May 25, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 763 words
| Trudie Dory
This story was updated at 12:40 p.m. ET.
Forecasters have upped the chances for a busier-than-normal Atlantic hurricane season.
Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued the new numbers during a teleconference today (Aug. 9). The updated forecast calls for 12 to 17 named storms, including the storms that have already occurred.
Five to eight of those storms are expected to become hurricanes, and two to three of those hurricanes could become major hurricanes, defined as Category 3 or stronger on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
[Read More]Eta Carinae's epic supernova explosion comes to life in new visualization
Posted on May 25, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 456 words
| Mittie Cheatwood
A new visualization shows the power of an epic star explosion erupting in deep space.
The video(opens in new tab) shows the famous explosion in the Eta Carinae star system that briefly made it the brightest object in the sky in the year 1843. More than 170 years later, the two lobes of the nova are still expanding into space, providing a rich trove of data to gather.
"The team did such an amazing job representing the volumetric layers that viewers can immediately and intuitively comprehend the complex structure,"
[Read More]Good and Evil Deeds Stimulate Surprising 'Superpowers'
Posted on May 25, 2023
| 3 minutes
| 485 words
| Patria Henriques
The mere act of kindness, or one of evil, can boost willpower and physical strength, a new study suggests.
The results, based on three experiments, show that those who performed good deeds, or envisioned themselves acting charitably, were able to hold a weight or squeeze a hand grip significantly longer than those who didn't perform or think about such deeds.
But evil acts appeared to confer similar and perhaps even greater superpowers.
[Read More]Jacques Cousteau Legacy Still Making a Splash
Posted on May 25, 2023
| 4 minutes
| 776 words
| Arica Deslauriers
Ever since "The Silent World" hit movie screens around the world in 1956, Jacques Cousteau (1910 – 1997) and his red cap have been synonymous with ocean exploration.
Sailing around the world on his iconic ship Calypso, Cousteau captivated audiences with the unknown ocean and inspired future generations of ocean explorers. Friday marks the 100th birthday of Jacques Cousteau, whose legacy still lives on in the quest to unravel the ocean's mysteries.
[Read More]New Primate with Face Mask & Toxic Bite Discovered
Posted on May 25, 2023
| 2 minutes
| 414 words
| Arica Deslauriers
A new small primate with a toxic bite and distinctive facial fur markings has been discovered in the jungles of Borneo.
The new slow loris species is found in the highlands of the island of Borneo and has been named Nycticebus kayan, after a major river, the Kayan, flowing through the region. The trio of scientists also found that two species previously considered sub-species in the Nycticebus genus are officially unique species.
[Read More]Polycystic Ovary Syndrome: Symptoms and Treatment
Posted on May 25, 2023
| 6 minutes
| 1243 words
| Patria Henriques
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common hormonal disorder in women of child-bearing age, and is one of the leading causes of infertility in women, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The condition affects about 5 million American women of reproductive ages, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and is named for the multiple cysts lining the outer edge of the ovaries.
[Read More]